Chancellor's Parashah Commentary

Parashat Bo 5756
Exodus 10:1 - 13:16
January 27, 1996 6 Shvat 5756

Ismar Schorsch is the chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary.

Isidor I. Rabi, who was born in Austria in 1898, won the Nobel
prize in physics in 1944. He was still a venerable presence at
Columbia when I joined the faculty in the late 1960s. Though
I met him but a few times, he impressed me with his good
humor, humanity and interest in things Jewish. After he died in
January 1988, I learned that he had once been asked by an
admiring friend, "Why did you become a scientist, rather than a
doctor or lawyer or businessman, like the other immigrant kids
in your neighborhood?"

Rabi responded: "My mother made me a scientist without ever
intending it. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask
her child after school: 'So? Did you learn anything today?' But
not my mother. She always asked me a different question.
'Izzy,' she would say, 'did you ask a good question today?'
That difference - asking good questions - made me a scientist."

I love that story because it rings with truth. To frame the right
question is a more demanding level of learning. It calls for a
larger measure of engagement, skepticism and originality than
answering the one put to us by someone else.

The story is also quintessentially Jewish. The Talmud places a
premium on asking the right to question. Nearly every piece of
gemara begins by asking for the scriptural basis of the specific
mishna under discussion. To scrutinize conventional pieties and
practices afresh is the ferment that drives the debate to new
insights, keeping Judaism alive and responsive. No halakhic
codification, no matter how great its author, ever escaped the
critical eye of later commentators.

Our parasha anticipates this remarkable cultural trait by
acknowledging the right of children to challenge their parents.
Twice in the course of describing the ceremonial rites that Israel
is to enact at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, and ever after,
God envisions the inquiry of curious young onlookers. "And
when your children ask you (after you have settled in the land),
'What do you mean by this rite?' you shall say...(Exodus 12:26,
and again 13:14)". In yet a third passage, reference to the
question is omitted, though the text implies that the telling of
the story (ve-higadeta) is in response to one: "And you
shall explain to your son on that day, 'It is because of what the
Lord did for me when I went free from Egypt (Exodus 13:8).'"

If all this sounds vaguely familiar, it should. For these are the
scriptural verses (plus one more in Deuteronomy 6:20) that gave
rise to that most popular of all Jewish books, the Passover
Haggada. Essentially it is a script for a bit of domestic theater,
a dialogue between parents and children initiated by the asking
of four questions. Ritual and art combine to stimulate the
senses and elicit questions. Whatever the precise origin of the
Haggada, which means "telling" and is the noun form of the verb
"ve-higadeta" (and you shall tell), the book brilliantly
captures the spirit of our parasha.

Indeed, the Mishna (edited about 200 C.E.) Already stipulates
that after the pouring of the second cup (that is, after the
recitation of the kiddush and the dipping and eating of some
vegetables), a child is to ask four questions (slightly different
from ours). And with a fine pedagogic touch, the Mishna adds
that the father is to answer the child on his or her level. This is
not a moment for dazzling, but for making contact.

What is missing at this early stage in the crystallization of the
Haggada is the idea of four children, a pedagogic gem induced,
at least partly, by the prevailing pattern of four cups of wine and
four questions. More deeply, the reference to four types is an
honest recognition of diversity in the human family. Though
cast from the same mold, we are endowed with a vast range of
emotional and intellectual inflections. The sensitive parent or
teacher or leader intuits what the moment calls for. To misread
our audience is to foreclose the possibility to communicate.
And yet, the portrait of four diverse children does not imply that
we have an equal obligation to reach out to all of them. Only
three of the four - the wise, the simple and the child who knows
not even how to ask - deserve our serious and modulated
attention. The wicked, by the formulation of their questions and
the tone of their voices, ask only to repudiate and draw away.
For the time being they are beyond our reach, and the Haggada
instructs us to rebuff them:

Since he [the evil son] removes himself from the
community by denying God's role in the Exodus,
shake him by replying, "This is done because of
what God did for me when I went out of Egypt
(Exodus 13:8)." For me. Not for him. Had he
been there, he would not have been redeemed.

Not all questions betray interest or identification. Without a
scintilla of common ground, there is no chance of interaction.
Our energy is limited. We are encouraged to invest it in those
instances where we stand a chance of making a difference.
But life is painfully impermanent. Yesterday's outsider may
become tomorrow's seeker. The Haggada speaks of the
moment and not forever. When the quality of the question
changes, so must our response. We need to remain attentive for
signs of growth and maturation.

In the interim, we need to get better at the telling of the story.
Judaism is a glorious unbroken dialogue with God that
encompasses four millennia and every manner of human
expression. If the right question is our chance, the content and
conviction of our narrative is the key to being heard. The power
of a good story is irresistible. Yet our duty is not to answer
every question fully or adequately that our children or friends
might put to us about Judaism (some have none), but to
cultivate the attitude that will keep the questions coming. And
what better way is there than to set out and seek the answers
together, to join in recounting the same epic?